


Lotrips Ficlets: 2005

by AirgiodSLV



Series: Lotrips Ficlets [2]
Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-04
Updated: 2006-02-23
Packaged: 2019-07-20 11:50:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 5,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16136642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirgiodSLV/pseuds/AirgiodSLV
Summary: Notes: Forcaptnobvious, who provided the prompts.





	1. Ache

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: For [](https://captnobvious.livejournal.com/profile)[](https://captnobvious.livejournal.com/)**captnobvious** , who provided the prompts.

_Franka Potente/EW, Franka Potente/DM, DM/EW_

When Elijah first falls into infatuation with Franka, Dom clips photos of her from the tabloid magazines to send him in the mail. Pictures of her face, her clothes, her casual poses blurred just out-of-focus, all paper-clipped together and stuffed into plain white envelopes. Later, he sends pictures of Elijah to Franka through the postal service, but not magazine photos. Not publicized photos of the hobbit quartet, or even the posed originals like Te Anau in the snow. He sends her candid shots taken on Polaroid: Elijah at a party, face flushed and laughing; Elijah giving the camera the finger as he spills his coffee onto his shoes, cigarette in hand; Elijah asleep on the couch, bag of crisps leaning crookedly against his chest.

Franka calls his answering machine and leaves bitter messages full of profanity in German, the syllables harsh and rasping, her voice full of disdain. Dom imagines her sneering and spitting and he smiles, presses ‘replay’ before he presses ‘erase’. He thinks he would like to fuck her, he and Elijah at the same time, with her caught between them and hissing breathless curses, lips curled in anger that would be mostly lust. He says as much to the glossy magazine-perfect photographs of her that he’d rescued from Elijah’s post-break up shoebox, lying on his back on the bed in Elijah’s guestroom, heels digging into the mattress as he thrusts up into his fist.

He doesn’t think she can blame him, honestly, for still looking at what they both want and can’t have.


	2. Ache

"He shoots!" Elijah yells triumphantly, launching a styrofoam cup through the air that falls woefully short of its target, and Orlando offers enthusiastic support, slamming his beer bottle onto the table and hooting, "Piñata!"

"The fuck are they on about?" Bill grumbles, but his grumpiness is mostly due to the fact that Orlando and Elijah are, in fact, adorable, even (maybe even especially) when drunk off their arses, and that at the moment, he and Dom can't seem to compete with their enthusiasm for...well....everything.

"Lightweights," Dom comments loftily, nodding at his own wisdom. Elijah tries what might be an aborted dance move and trips over his own feet, leaving a barely-coordinated Orlando to catch him before he hits the floor.

"Jump off a bridge with me," Orlando demands suddenly, and Elijah's face is a study in comic overacting for a split-second, wide eyes and open 'O' mouth before he recovers himself and warms to the idea.

"Jump off the roof with me!" Elijah counters, possibly with the drunken logic that he is currently unable to prove his devotion, owing to the fact that they don't have a bridge handy, but do indeed have a suitable roof.

"Bloody loonies," Bill comments, although he can't ignore the way Orlando and Elijah move together, with a certain grace even when pissed out of their minds, reeling through space without a care in the world for, say, other people's bodies, and inanimate objects.

Orlando's hands are framing Elijah's face, and Elijah's cheeks are flushed with happiness, and Bill thinks that maybe it's okay that they have their own incomprehensible language at times like these, because they're just so bloody happy.

Lawrence moves to intercept them before they do actually throw themselves off of anything, and Orlando slings an arm around his shoulder companionably, explaining something - probably their grand plan to defeat gravity - with a lot of gesticulating while Elijah listens avidly and nods with mirrored earnestness. Bill leaves it in Lawrence's large, capable hands. They'll be distracted in a few minutes, and the crisis will be averted.

"Stark raving mad," Dom agrees. Bill shakes his head in agreement and smiles.


	3. Lovesong

Elijah doesn't have to work to become the best, but he does anyway. He's focused and attentive and earnest, and Orlando sometimes thinks that he gets more out of watching Elijah work than he does from filming his own sequences. He hangs around the edge of the set when he has free time during the day; not enough to actually leave and get something done, but more than he feels like wasting in an idle chat with Viggo or John.

Elijah's eyes skip to him once, while Pete is waving his arms and discussing angles with one of the cameramen, and he smiles; a little shy, a little tired, but still genuine. Orlando smiles back and raises his hand in a little wave, a silent, hey, how are you, I'm here. Elijah's smile brightens, and his eyes shine with life - a little more Elijah, and a little less Frodo.

Orlando wants to go over and talk to him, tell him about the morning shoot and the awful cream puff concoction they had in the Craft Services tent and the song that Bean played in the trailer during makeup, but he doesn't have time, because Elijah is focused on Pete again and nodding, taking one step to the right and shrugging himself off, pulling Frodo on like a cloak.

They'll be themselves later, Orlando knows, and Elijah will have something to eat and pick up the vibrancy he loses during the day, and he and Orlando will quarrel and laugh over something like a game of darts, because neither of them can play well, but they try anyway, and entertain each other with dire threats and posturing and bragging until they finally have to admit that they both just suck at darts.

And maybe after that Elijah will come home with him, head on Orlando's shoulder, and they can whisper to each other in bed. Things like how Orlando's afraid that he'll never be as good as Elijah because he just doesn't have it sometimes, and what they're going to do on the weekend if the weather is good enough for surfing, and which song Bean played in the trailer during makeup, and how Elijah has three covers of it, if Orlando would like to hear them.

And everything will be perfect, and Orlando will fall asleep happy.


	4. Small Steps

They take slow, uncertain steps towards each other, and sometimes it's so painfully awkward and shy that it's easy to doubt it's happening at all, that they'll ever be something or even have the chance to be something, whether they'll stop wanting it before it ever arrives. Elijah ducks his head and glances away when the moments get to be too _much_ , pregnant with possibility, and Orlando laughs loudly and answers someone else.

There's no question that it's happening, though, and they dance around each other for what feels like forever before the right moment finally arrives, and then it's lips and tongues and fingertips, trying to be gentle but just _needing_ , so much, and utterly unable to stop. It's sweet, the first time, and slow, but with an intensity that neither of them were entirely prepared for by looks and hugs and daydreams.

_I want you_ one of them says, and the other whispers _yes_ , and then they're floating on sensation and discovery and what might just be, upon deeper exploration, love.


	5. Thunderclap

Elijah's back hits the wall hard enough that he sees stars, or maybe that's just the glint in Orlando's eyes, taking him off-guard and by surprise, although it shouldn't, not when they're like this, not when he knows Orlando is in the mood and his hand is right...oh...shit...

"Mine," Orlando whispers fiercely, and Elijah hisses like a cat, back arching, nails scratching down Orlando's back. "You," Orlando moans, and Elijah swallows it, does his best to swallow Orlando's tongue as well as the words, kissing so deeply that they lose track of what it feels like to be separate, two mouths instead of one, fused and whole.

Elijah's legs are around Orlando's waist, and now they're just rocking together, bright-spangling pleasure and friction, gasping words that don't mean anything outside of this moment, this feeling, this connection.

Elijah bites, and Orlando tries to snarl but loses it in the feel of Elijah's hands on his chest, under his shirt and over his nipples, pulling and twisting and Orlando swears, bitter and vicious and ecstatic, pulling Elijah closer to him as if he can somehow get under Elijah's skin, penetrate his very being.

"I'm not," Elijah gasps, and Orlando shuts him up with his mouth, with his cock dragging hard and dry across Elijah's, and when Elijah has been silenced Orlando raises his head, rolls his hips and answers, "I know."


	6. Smoke and Mirrors

Orlando doesn't smoke, at least not the way Elijah does, chain-lit cigarettes and sweet-dirty cloves. Elijah looks sweet and tastes bitter, although the taste is always worth chasing, because anything is worth those ripe pink lips, the insidious slither of a smoke-coated tongue.

Orlando asks what he tastes like, once when Elijah is curled lazily around him outside of a bar in downtown Wellington, where they've been making out in an alley like teenagers for the better part of twenty minutes with no one - as far as they know - the wiser.

Elijah grins and says, "candy", probably because he thinks it will piss Orlando off, but it's funny when Orlando is the elusive one, the one that always pulls away first. Orlando is smoke, and Elijah is sugary without being cloying or addictive, too much like cloves and not enough like nicotine.

It's something of a balm when they come together, because neither of them is really completely what the other one wants, but it's enough for now. Orlando leaves when something else catches his mind, and Elijah pretends not to care, waits for Orlando to come back to him; which he always does, inevitable as the tide. Pull-and-push, tangle and unwind, and the only thing that remains constant is the way they kiss.


	7. All Dressed Up

"Sweet Christ," Bean says in shocked awe, although he immediately tries to cover the spots in his cheeks by taking a swig from his ale, ignoring the fact that he's said anything.

Billy could echo the sentiment, although it's a purely (or almost purely) artistic appreciation, for the sheer amount of work that must have gone into making Orlando look that good, wigged and made-up and wearing a sheath dress that somehow gives him the illusion of curves. Billy's crotch tightens, but it's not lust for a man, or even for Orlando, it's just an automatic, slightly-inebriated response to what looks like a woman; and what looks, as a woman, really bloody good.

"What do you think?" Orlando asks, and he's smirking, the bastard, probably done this a hundred times for drag parties and knows exactly how good he looks in that short of a skirt. Viggo made an honest attempt, but he can't really pull it off, and neither can the rest of them. Billy's actually come the closest, to his own surprise, although Dom claims it's only because of the goldilocks wig and the fact that he has dainty hands and lips like a girl.

If it was anyone but Dom, Billy may have been worried about that.

So it was him, but now it looks like it's Orlando, and Billy isn't truly jealous of him for that. Being the prettiest bloke-dressed-as-a-bird isn't a competition he ever really wanted to win, honestly, and they all knew that it would probably be Orlando who blew away the competition. The only other one of them even in the running hasn't shown up yet, and that's...

Dom makes a noise in the back of his throat, sort of half-startled and half-interested, and Billy looks first at him, and then at whatever hes looking at, and...oh. There he is.

There's the barest hint of a blush on Elijah's cheeks, a study in contrasts with Orlando, who's gracefully swishing over to their table with all of the confidence in the world. Orlando turns when someone - not Dom; Sean, maybe? - hoots, and his lips slowly turn up in a grin when he sees Elijah, picking his way daintily over to them in spike heels and a dress that wouldn't have looked out of place on a 1920's flapper. Bill wonders briefly where he got it from, and then chides himself sharply for caring.

"Hey, sexy," Orlando drawls, and Elijah's cheeks flush even more, but his chin comes up and his hips sway more, rising to the challenge flashing in Orlando's eyes.

"Come on, give us a kiss!" Bean yells, apparently overcoming his earlier embarassment, and there's a call of "Lesbians!" from the far side of room, where Billy forgets who has congregated. Dom makes another noise, and Billy glances at him curiously, only to see a look in Dom's eyes that says he's considering eating one of them for dessert, but can't figure out which one.

Elijah is blushing harder and laughing, but Orlando's manhood is apparently securely intact with this suggestion, even when he's wearing silk stockings and garters. The room explodes into catcalls when Orlando's arm curls around Elijah's waist and yanks him close for a kiss that, from where Billy's sitting, looks pretty damned believable. His cock is increasingly, although understandably, confused by this turn of events, and does a little jump in his pants to make him aware of this fact.

"Um," says Dom beside him, and Billy doesn't dare take his eyes away from the spit-swapping that's - Heaven almighty - still going on in the center of the room to respond to this, but he thinks he doesn't really need to, because he's fairly certain that Dom is referring to the way Orlando's hand is sliding up Elijah's thigh and taking his rather scandalously short skirt with it.

"I need a drink," Billy says matter-of-factly, because his mouth is rather dry at the moment, and he's not nearly drunk enough for the sort of display that is currently taking place. Orlando and Elijah kiss like they know each other's lips already, and that's something else that Billy doesn't currently want to be thinking about.

"A strong drink," he adds after a moment, and he isn't really surprised when a large percentage of the room agrees with him.


	8. Spiderweb

Orlando's in a mood tonight that he doesn't often get into, and Dom can see it from a mile away, although it's patently obvious to him that Elijah can't. Dom dances with Orlando just enough to share the buzz, to get into the mood with Orlando's mouth whispering filthy things into his ear and his fingers stroking beneath Dom's T-shirt, dipping just below his waistband. He doesn't stay, though, knows better than to be trapped when Orlando is in this kind of mood, and so is careful to break away when it starts to become too much of a temptation. Orlando in this mood is dangerous, and Dom's learned better than to think he can win at this game.

Elijah, though...Elijah is a sheep waiting to be fleeced, an innocent stumbling into Orlando's orbit by the pull of gravity, and Dom would do something to put a stop to it except that...he doesn't really know why. He's watching it happen, he's _letting_ it happen, and he's not doing anything to keep it from ending up where he knows it will.

The gents', and Dom realizes they've gone a few minutes after it must have happened, because they were there just a minute ago, and now...

He follows because he's curious, and more than a little buzzed, and maybe even voyeuristic, although he couldn't say for certain what he would do if he actually caught them. And he does catch them, pressed tight against each other in the flickering, sickly phosphorescent light coming from the overhead bulbs, ignorant or perhaps simply uncaring of the grime on the graffiti-covered walls and yellowed porcelain sinks.

There's no sound, from either of them, which makes it silghtly eerie; Dom expected whimpers, moans, the vulgar sounds of lust and sex. But it's just them, a silent moving picture in washed-out technicolor, gripping each other hard and kissing with a ferocity that makes Dom swallow, throat dry, and lick his lips.

He should have warned Elijah, he thinks; but then, Elijah doesn't look like he's too badly off, or taken advantage of...if anything, he's holding his own, pushing back every time Orlando makes a move for dominance. Dom rests a hand against the door, absently thinking that it would be better if no one else came in and saw this, and his other hand slides inside his loose trousers to form a fist around his cock.

Orlando's hand moves too, sliding down Elijah's spine until it's below Elijah's waistband, fingers visibly stroking the cleft of Elijah's buttocks, and Dom swallows too loud and prays that they don't hear him.

Maybe they don't, or maybe they just don't care. But Orlando's finger curls and pushes in a way that Dom's body knows, and he grips his cock a little tighter, eyes closing only to open again, afraid to miss anything. He expects Elijah to panic, imagines the pulse beating hummingbird-wing fast in Elijah's throat and his hands pushing Orlando's shoulders, trying to get away, desperate to break the surface.

But Elijah doesn't...Elijah's spine curls, and the muscles in his thighs tighten. And Orlando is the one who groans.


	9. Current

Orlando's had girlfriends before with whom sex was fun, so he's not really all that taken aback when Elijah turns out to be a riot in bed, flexible and giggling and not serious at all. Somehow, the intensity that Orlando expected...well, it's still there, but it's beneath the surface of something lighter and fresher, full of unrestrained joy.

There are moments - mostly when Elijah's legs are around Orlando's waist and he's on his back in Orlando's bed, and Orlando is moving inside of him more carefully than Elijah usually encourages - when Elijah's eyes go wide and liquid, when he gasps with more honesty than he ever speaks, and closes his eyes before Orlando can see in them whatever it is that Elijah feels at times like these.

It's those moments when Orlando feels most connected, although he never chases them, never tries to make them happen. He knows Elijah won't let him have that much control, will turn the tables and tease him and roll them until he's straddling Orlando and riding him with enough skill to make them both moan. But sometimes he can catch Elijah unawares, catch _himself_ , and those are the moments that take his breath away.

Elijah doesn't fight him as much when it happens anymore; and every time Orlando falls a little further.


	10. Crash

It's Elijah's first time for making love out of doors, and Orlando teases him about it, but gently, because he doesn't want to scare Elijah away. They brought a blanket to hide under, planning to spread out on the beach once the sun went down and soak up the last warmth from the sand. But once they were here, the water was warm, and Elijah had drawn him down onto the shore at the place where the water was lapping slowly higher, washing over their bare skin cold enough to make Orlando shiver and Elijah laugh.

"Here," Elijah whispers, and Orlando takes him the way he asks, with Elijah's head tilted back, moaning as Orlando moves in him, slow and steady with the tempo of the far-off crashing waves. Orlando's lips cover Elijah's to remind him that they're here, together, and Elijah's heels slide slippery over Orlando's back, ankles crossed at the base of Orlando's spine.

"I love you," Orlando says when he can't hold back any longer, and the waves have been forgotten because they're half-covered in water, and Orlando has lost the rhythm of the waves and is moving at his own pace, his and Elijah's, because Elijah is begging him with soft pleas and encouraging moans and Orlando can't say no to that, especially not when he can feel Elijah's heartbeat against his chest and beneath his lips and in his cock, racing and breathless.

"I know," Elijah whispers, and his back arches and he comes just as the wave crashes down around them, and the world is obscured in a shower of ocean.


	11. Thin-skinned

Orlando has never felt self-conscious about his own naked body before, but he does with Elijah. Maybe because Elijah is movie-star perfect, while Orlando is the gangly film-school student still, with broken skin and broken bones and a history of playing daredevil written on his flesh. He tries to turn out the light, but Elijah says, "leave it on," so Orlando does. And he tries not to care that Elijah's skin is perfect, pale and flawless the way Orlando's never will be again, but it's hard with Elijah's eyes on him, wiser than they ought to be and always meauring, contemplating, examining.

"Don't," Orlando begs without meaning to, but Elijah just hushes him, kisses every inch of Orlando's skin and soothes the scars the still burn in Orlando's mind with his tongue, until Orlando is pushing back against him and begging for a different reason, with Elijah's tongue inside him and his body made of molten fire.

Elijah splits him open and fills him, and Orlando is made whole again.


	12. Transparency

Elijah crawls - _stalks_ \- up the bed, and Orlando's heart is caught somewhere in his throat, fluttering madly, beating in his chest and the pulse point in his neck and especially in his cock, which is flushed and hard with _wanting_ when he's not even sure how to ask if he can have. He thinks he can, with the way Elijah is looking at him, the sleek play of his muscles as he settles over Orlando's hips, straddling him and dipping down for a kiss that doesn't quite connect, tongues stroking but lips never brushing.

Orlando's never done this before, but he can't tell Elijah that; not when he's the one who started this, with posturing and posing and fairly graphic suggestions whispered in Elijah's ear at the pub. When Elijah's hips rock against his, practiced and assured, Orlando dissolves, falls back into pillows and sheets and Elijah's skin.

Elijah leans down, licks Orlando's ear, whispers the words that finish unraveling him and turn him into nothing but Elijah's.

" _I can see right through you._ "


	13. Slowdance

It takes them far longer to figure out than it does anyone else. Maybe because for them, the friendship is enough, is more than they expected, is all they know to look for. And they're happy, so no one says a word, no one pushes, no one makes jokes - which is telling enough, considering the lot of them and their ideas of humour.

But there's no mistaking the way Elijah's eyes light up when Orlando walks into the room, with sheer unrestrained glee; or the way Orlando moves with Elijah on the dance floor even when they're not dancing together, just side-by-side, or across the room.

They touch and move apart, ebb and flow, and the beauty of it as an unwitting courtship far outweighs the frustration that anyone feels with the two of them for drawing it out so long. If there's an _oh_ moment, they all miss it, and that's really as it should be, for the two of them alone.

But they do see the aftermath, stumbling into Elijah's kitchen one night during a party that's threatening to shake the foundations of the house, and Billy and Dom reach out to stop each other at the same time when they see two heads bent together, lips softly touching, hands resting lightly on shoulders and hips.

They leave quietly before they ruin the moment, and they leave with shared smiles.


	14. Crossed Wires

_Orlando/Elijah, G_

Orlando isn't interested.

That's obvious even to Elijah, who considers everyone fair game up to a point, and is fairly ambiguous about his own preferences. Orlando might be bi, possibly, but Elijah's not his type even if he is. Orlando goes for the older men like Sean Bean and Viggo, the strong, rugged kind of man that Elijah will probably never become. Orlando doesn't even consider Elijah worth goofing around with, like he does with Dom; they've never had a kiss, even in jest, or a hug that lasted longer than it took to clap each other on the back in greeting. He's out of the picture, out of the question, out of Elijah's league. Elijah should just get over it and move on.

But somehow he can't.

* * *

Elijah isn't interested.

Orlando played it coy, dropped hints, sent signals. All deflected as if they didn't exist, and Elijah - who, if they were the sort of blokes who placed bids on a bloke's sexuality, Orlando may have put 50 quid down on as being totally, 100% bent - pulls girls in bars nearly every night without even blinking an eyelash. Not even butch girls, but these pretty, slim, dark-eyed birds with lush curves and pouting mouths. Orlando never even had a chance. He should just accept that and stop stealing glances at Elijah's lips, lashes, throat when he takes a drink and swallows...he should get a grip and let it go.

But somehow he can't.


	15. Vignette

Dom/Elijah ~ NC-17

“Jesus, you take forever to come,” Dom says in something like aggrieved awe. Elijah’s beneath him on hands and knees, rocking steadily back onto Dom’s cock, sweat sheening his torso.

Elijah huffs out a breath, raising his head and arching his back slightly. “Well, it’s not like I’m getting a lot of friction here,” he pants, testy.

Dom’s had a solid grip on Elijah’s hips since they started, but now he moves one lower, seeking Elijah’s engorged cock bobbing in the air underneath his pelvis. “You could have told me,” he reminds Elijah as he curls his fingers around the shaft, relieved that at least now he can get Elijah off and not worry about holding back. He knows better now than to come before Elijah’s satisfied.

Elijah shifts his weight abruptly, making Dom grit his teeth and catch his balance as Elijah slaps his hand away. “Don’t,” Elijah gasps, and makes a little choked sound in his throat when Dom shoves in hard. “I want this to last.”

“What are we, a fucking honeymoon couple?” Dom whines in disbelief, accent and volume increasing simultaneously. Elijah grunts when Dom thrusts in again, hands once more on Elijah’s hips and hauling him back in forceful jerks onto Dom’s cock. “It’s just a – ”

“Dominic,” Elijah snaps, and Dom’s jaw clacks shut. “Just shut the fuck up and fuck me.”


	16. Preen

_EW, DM, BB ~ PG ~ AU_

Elijah’s sitting on the bed in his bedroom, cleaning his feathers.

Billy and Dom watch helpless from the door, stunned into a state of horror and sick awe. Elijah works painstakingly on each one, remige and retrice, running oily fingers over the axis and smoothing the vane with his tongue. His wings are the picture of health, practically glowing in the dim light of a room with covered windows and no illumination.

It throws his body into sharp counterpoint, demonstrates the contrast of lank, greasy hair and unwashed skin. The floor is littered with dirty laundry and take-away boxes, but Elijah doesn’t look as if he’s eaten in weeks. His fingers separate the barbules with care, working from calamus to rachis in slow, practiced movements, and as they watch he completes another bathing, eyes glowing with feverish pride as he smoothes the feather back into the wing and selects the next one.

The dust on the furniture is centimeters thick, and nothing’s been disturbed recently enough to show a sign. No smears in the dirt, no patches of untarnished wood. There’s no path from the door to the bed. It’s like Elijah sat cross-legged in the center of the bed one day and never moved again. It’s like Elijah has died.

Billy makes a noise in his throat, something like disbelief, although it can’t be. He sees, he believes. Dom is braver, he says, “Elijah,” as if he actually thinks he’ll get a response.

Elijah doesn’t seem to hear them. He finishes cleaning another feather – one in dozens, hundreds, thousands – and moves on to the next.


	17. I Am Standing Here, Aren't I?

"Where have you been?"

Elijah's voice is cold enough to freeze water, and Dom is instantly put on the alert. _What have I done wrong?_ he thinks, and can't immediately come up with an answer.

"At the pub?" he tries, hoping that's the right answer, because it's the only one he has. "Having drinks with some of the guys. Why?"

Elijah's lips are pursed, eyes dangerously dark. Dom is starting to get nervous. "You've forgotten, haven't you?" Elijah accuses, and Dom continues wracking his brain but comes up empty-handed.

"No?" he replies cautiously. He thinks he can actually hear Elijah's teeth grind together when his jaw sets.

"I can't believe this," Elijah fumes. "You were at the _pub_ , while I was waiting...did you even think to answer my calls, or did you forget your phone as well?"

Dom blinks, and belatedly takes in the table set for two, the taper candles (where the fuck did he even get taper candles?), the wine bottle breathing on the counter. "It was loud," he defends, somewhat lamely. "And then I was on my way here anyway, so I thought..."

He trails off, and Elijah seems only too happy to take up the thread. "You _thought_? Clearly you _didn't_ think, or you would have been here hours ago, when the salad wasn't limp and the wine wasn't warm and the garlic bread wasn't stale." His nostrils flare dangerously. Dom swallows.

"Geez," he jokes. "Is it that time of the month? I thought only girls got like this."

He realizes his mistake and curses his big mouth after less than a second, when Elijah's eyes grow impossibly three times wider and his lips thin. Dom ducks a split-second before the dinner plate shatters against the wall behind his head, and comes up with his hands raised in surrender.

"Okay, okay!" he soothes, heartbeat racing and keeping a close eye on Elijah's hands, which are curling and uncurling in warning of further violence. "I'm sorry, okay? Whatever it is, I accept responsibility, and I apologize. Fully."

To his bewilderment, Elijah doesn't seem mollified. If anything, he looks angrier. "You fucker," he hisses, and Dom hastily changes tactics.

"So I'm sleeping on the couch tonight, yeah?" he placates. "I'm fine with that, really, I'll just take a blanket from the closet..."

This time he makes it out the front door before the plate hits, and shuts it on Elijah's blood-curdling shriek of rage.

* * *

"I don't get it," Dom says, baffled even after two more beers and countless repetitions of the scene in his head. "What did I do?"

"You're sure it isn't your anniversary?" Sean asks shrewdly, with the wisdom of countless wives and girlfriends behind him.

"We haven't been together that long," Dom assures him, picking at the label on his bottle. He can't remember _when_ exactly they got together, but he's sure it wasn't that long ago.

"First month?" Karl questions. "First date?"

Dom's brow furrows in concentration, and he slowly shakes his head. "No," he replies, as certain as he can be. "I don't think so."

"First kiss?" Sean asks, and Dom freezes, eyes slowly widening in epiphany.

"Aha," Karl says, not unsympathetically. "Thought that might be it."

"Fuck," Dom complains loudly. "I'm supposed to remember _that_?"

"Never forget the first kiss, lad," Sean tells him wisely. "You can be sure they won't."

Dom sighs, and gives Sean a hopeful look. "Will roses work, do you think?"


End file.
